Paul, the Regent of a ‘Dune’ like nation is taken for questioning aboard the interstellar vessel pietron by a race of aliens calling themselves the bitronian elite, these aliens were attempting to judge the strength of Pauls Nations defenses before beginning their assault on his home planet.
Months Before Paul had heard of a race that had begun invading the nations of the free worlds star systems, and it had become common knowledge that the only thing that could stop them and their advanced weaponry, was a piece of technology known as a tachyon beam, which when fashioned into a shield, rendered the vast majority of their superior weapons technology largely inert. Paul had recently employed this “now freelance” scientist to develop a shield that if required would be able to shield the entire city of shinatra, his birth place and his nephews chosen place of residence, where he diligently studied, until he reached the age were he could effectively lead his people. The shield wasn’t due to be completed until the end of the summer, however on the day of the bitronian’s attack, the scientist was just about to run a test run of the shield generator confined just to shielding itself and the west wing of the castle, he had just finished a radio link with his pilot of his personal starship Einstein, instructing him to fire a few practice bursts, at the keeps marshaling yard , which due to recent inclement weather looked more like a mud-flat then a yard presently, anyway so what harm could he do.
Paul watched on in horror as  7 bursts of light streaked towards his planet destined for what he knew from experience would be his worlds main communication array as well as the defensive control tower, both of which he had spent the better part of his 15 years as regent rebuilding, since the battle that killed his foster-brother and nearly destroyed his nation.  The bitronian elite as they chose  to call themselves, had obtained the location of his homeworld from Paul, without even having to ask,  how they had done so worried him greatly.
Raising the shields for the test, the scientist gave the order just as bright beams of light pierced the inner atmosphere, causing the pilot to instinctively enable the shields of his vessel inadvertently in the path of the beams.
Believing his planets resistance to be extinguised, and nolonger having a use for Paul the bahakra people  swiftly ended his life, completely unawares that one space faring vessel with its own private earlier prototype tachyon shield in combination with the test run of the still largely incomplete planetary shield had protected the city from all but one of the beams, which after tearing through the Einsteins weakened shields caused from the previous 6 beams and the fact the shields had no time to charge properly before the attack, struck the very center of the marshaling yard, appearing to have been deflected just faintly enough while traveling through the planetary shield that no real damage was done to the keep.